7 Reasons Why the Equality Act Is Anything But

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reads a note handed to her during a news conference Wednesday where House and Senate Democrats introduced the Equality Act of 2019, which they say would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Commentary By

Monica Burke is a research assistant in the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.

Most Americans don’t want a nationwide bathroom requirement, health care mandate, or “preferred pronoun” law based on gender identity, but congressional Democrats seem to think it’s time to impose them.

Nancy
Pelosi delivered Wednesday on her promise to introduce the so-called Equality
Act, which would elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to protected
classes in federal anti-discrimination law.

Although that
may sound nice in theory, in practice sexual orientation and gender identity
policies at the state and local level have caused profound harms to Americans
from all walks of life.

How might a sexual orientation and gender identity law on the federal level, as introduced in the House and Senate, affect you and your community? Here are seven ways:

1. It would penalize Americans who don’t affirm new sexual norms or gender ideology.

Jack Phillips’ case went all the way to the Supreme Court after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission accused the bakery owner of discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation when the self-described cake artist declined to create a custom cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, but left the law in question, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, intact. Until last week, Phillips was in court again defending himself against the same agency under the same law.

The day after the Supreme Court ruled in Phillips’ case, Autumn Scardina, a lawyer who identifies as transgender, requested that he create a “gender transition cake.” After Phillips declined, the state Civil Rights Commission found probable cause under the law that the baker had discriminated on the basis of gender identity.

Thankfully, the commission
last week dropped
the case, and Phillips agreed to drop his own lawsuit accusing the
state agency of harassing him for his Christian beliefs.

These cases are just the beginning. The same policies used to silence disagreement over marriage can be used to silence disagreement over the biological reality of sex.

2. It would compel speech.

Virginia high school teacher Peter
Vlaming lost
his job for something he did not say.

A county school board voted
unanimously to fire the veteran teacher over
the objections of his students after he refused to comply with
administrators’ orders to use masculine pronouns in referring to a female
student who identifies as transgender.

Vlaming did his best to accommodate the student without violating his religious belief that God created human beings male and female, using the student’s new name and simply refraining from using pronouns altogether.

Unfortunately,
the school still considered this a violation of its anti-discrimination policy.

Incidents like these would increase under federal policy proposed in the Equality Act. Both federal and private employers could face costly lawsuits if they fail to implement strict preferred pronoun policies. Employees could be disciplined if they fail to comply, regardless of their scientific or moral objections.

3. It could shut down charities.

Foster care
and adoption agencies, drug rehabilitation centers, and homeless centers
already face challenges under state and local policies on sexual orientation
and gender identity.

Although
same-sex couples have the opportunity to foster children through the state or
every other agency in Philadelphia, the city canceled its contract with Catholic
Social Services. The agency’s approved foster homes remain available while
children languish on the waiting list.

A federal sexual
orientation and gender identity law would make this situation a national
phenomenon, which would spell disaster for the 437,500 children in foster care
nationwide.

In one attempt, authorities said, Coyle was inebriated and had gotten into a fight with a staffer at another shelter, so Hope Center staff paid Coyle’s fare to the emergency room to receive medical attention. Coyle sued the center for “gender identity discrimination.”

A federal sexual orientation and gender identity law could force any social service organization to open up private facilities—including single-sex bathrooms, showers, and sleeping areas—to members of the opposite sex.

4. It would allow more biological males to defeat girls in sports.

Two
biological males who identify and compete as women easily
defeated all of their female competitors in an event at the Connecticut
State Track Championships. Transgender athlete Terry Miller broke the state
record in the girls’100-meter dash. Andraya Yearwood, also transgender, took
second place.

Selina
Soule, a female runner, not only lost to the biological males in the championships
but also lost out on valuable opportunities to be seen by college coaches and
chosen for scholarships.

Soule said about the 100-meter event: “We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it’s demoralizing.”

A federal sexual orientation and
gender identity law would defeat the purpose of Title IX of the Civil Rights
Act, which is supposed to guarantee women equal educational and athletic
opportunities.

Under radical gender identity
policies, female athletes have sustained gruesome
injuries at the hands of male competitors. In high school wrestling, female
athletes have forfeited
rather than compete against transgender athletes on testosterone.

A federal law could set girls’ and women’s sports back permanently at every level.

5. It could be used to coerce medical professionals.

Under state
sexual orientation and gender identity laws, individuals who identify as
transgender have sued Catholic hospitals in California
and New
Jersey for declining to perform hysterectomies on otherwise healthy women
who wanted to pursue gender transition.

If these
lawsuits succeed, medical professionals would be pressured to treat patients
according to ideology rather than their best medical judgment.

The
politicization of medicine according to gender ideology will create more
conflicts among parents, doctors, and the government. A federal sexual
orientation and gender identity law would jeopardize parental rights
nationwide.

This has
already happened. In Ohio, a judge removed a biological girl from her parents’
custody after they declined to help her “transition” to male with testosterone
supplements.

After the
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s Transgender Health Clinic recommended these
treatments for the girl’s gender dysphoria, the parents wanted to pursue
counseling instead. Then the county’s family services agency charged the
parents with abuse and neglect, and the judge terminated their custody.

Similar
cases are proceeding through the courts with children as
young as 6 years old.

Meanwhile,
studies show that 80
to 95 percent of children no longer experience gender dysphoria
after puberty. Politicizing medicine could have serious
consequences for children who are exposed to the unnecessary medical
risks of drastic therapies.

A federal sexual orientation and gender identity law would make these cases more common.

School
authorities refused to change the policy even after Thomas reported the
assault. Eventually, she decided to remove her daughter from school for the
girl’s emotional well-being and physical safety.

A federal sexual
orientation and gender identity law would give male sexual predators who self-identify
as females access to private facilities, increasing the likelihood of these tragic
incidents.

The proposed Equality Act could impose a nationwide bathroom policy that would leave women and children in particular vulnerable to predators. It actually would promote inequality by elevating the ideologies of special-interest groups to the level of protected groups in civil rights law.

***

The Equality Act defies the purpose of anti-discrimination laws. The original Civil Rights Act was enacted to protect African-Americans from being denied access to material goods and services.

The Equality Act, by contrast, would be used as a sword to attack people and force them to adopt new ideologies about human sexuality.

This extreme and dangerous legislation would create
unprecedented harms to businesses, charities, medical professionals, women and
children, and entire families.

The writing is on the wall: The Equality Act is
anything but.

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